Kids out at the Pasir Ris mangrove boardwalk!

It's the last days of the school holidays and lots of families joined the Crabs for another exciting walk at the Pasir Ris mangrove boardwalk! About 80 mums, dads, kids and nature lovers! Hurray!

The kids, as usual, are super spotters and thanks to them, we see all kinds of awesome mangrove life!

Among our favourites are enormous Giant mudskippers, which are everywhere.

The kids also spotted tiny mudskippers, tiny colourful fiddler crabs, spiders, butterflies and more. And it was a little hard to spot, but there was one well hidden Dog-faced watersnake in the murky water.

Alyce pointed out to us a nearly invisible cicada on a tree trunk. My photo of it is so bad, I have to circle it. The kids also spotted a pair of tailorbirds, and we heard the kingfishers throughout out walk.

At the jetty, we had a look at the nesting herons, various fishes in the water and ....

Mei Lin pointed out a Malayan water monitor resting on a tree on the opposite of Sungei Tampines!

It was so busy and frantic with so many people, I didn't really take many photos of our finds! Fortunately, Kok Sheng took some great photos which he shared on his blog! And, at the end of the walk, the kids drew what they saw, so here's our walk through their eyes!

The tree climbing crabs are a big hit with the young ones.

I can't decide which are cuter, the drawings or the artists!

Liam (12 and a half) and Skylar (9 and a half) shared how we took photos from the boardwalk: of birds, butterflies, snails, and lots of crabs in 'volcano condos' and mudskippers too!

Here's the artist at work.

Lim Zheng Yang (8 years old) shares another lovely view of the boardwalk, where the trees have stilt roots and there are lots of weird crabs living in strange mounds.

The masterpiece being created.

Emmanuel Sze (9 years old) shares a detailed look at the mangrove life. With streams winding among trees on stilts with all kinds of little creatures on the mud and mounds, and leaves everywhere.

Here's the artist at work.

Deandra (9 years plus) shares this awesome view of the mangroves. Besides weird roots, there are birds nesting in the trees, and alas, yes, she notices litter among the trees. This is why we need to put litter into the litter bin. She also shared a lovely poem about mangroves in a separate sheet.

Here she is at work.

Josh saw really cool stuff, like a Rhino beetle even before we began our walk. As well as a beehive! And a St. Andrew's cross spider. There are also strange seedlings on the mangrove trees!

Here he is at work.

Happy crabs leaping! With happy folks on the boardwalk. Goh Si Qi (10 years) also notices pencil roots!

The artist and her masterpiece.

But I am most impressed by Goh Kai Seng (7 years) who shared wonderful detailed and colourful drawings of the highlights of our trip, with labels too!

He had drawn these earlier in his field notebook! Bravo!

Here's the rest of the wonderful thoughts shared by the kids. These precious drawings show that Pasir Ris mangroves are truly special in the hearts of many ordinary people. Easily accessible, full of life and so fascinating for everyone to enjoy!

Here's a photo of the intrepid team of kids led by Alyce. Thanks also to Kok Sheng, Ivan and Pei Yan for guiding, and Mei Lin for helping out.

A special treat for the Crabs: to finally meet Vito and his family. Vito is creating an iPad app for a Pasir Ris walk! We are helping with this app. It will be available for free download soon! Here's Mei Lin having a look at it.

Don't worry if you missed this walk. We'll be having this walk again on 24 Mar (Sat), 21 Apr (Sat) and 28 Apr (Sat). Here's more details. Hope to see you at Pasir Ris!

Others who posted about our trip: Thank you!

• Kok Sheng's blog post with lots of great photos of some of our encounters!
• Joy Bea Lee shared on facebook what her family saw and did.
• Mei Lin shared more about our walk on her blog.